


Contender

by Puzzled



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6623866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puzzled/pseuds/Puzzled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting the two-time Mistral champion wasn't going to be easy, but what was?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contender

Goldmill’s was a throwback. Built in a retrofitted hanger it was spartan, the platonic ideal of a boxing gym. It had a few raised rings, punching bags of all weights, dumbbells that ranged from five pounds to the absurd, and what looked like every exercise machine ever to make it on an infomercial. Every three minutes a buzzer rang and activity ceased, only for it to inevitably start again at the next. There was an odor that no amount of clorox or soap could remove, sweat, leather and the mold from the perpetually damp locker rooms.  
  
Past that the only noteworthy thing was the crowd. They were mostly lured by the manager Mickey, an old welterweight who’d done a journeyman’s work but never made it big. All told they were a collection of has-beens teaching and training the never-weres. It wasn’t Signal, or any of the prestigious combat schools, but for the desperate looking for their one big moment it was their last hope. To an inexperienced fighter the raised platforms, the squared circles, they were the stuff dreams were made of. Every once in awhile those dreams came true.  
  
The door to the gym opened, letting a swirl of cold air in. A tall boy bundled up in a hoodie with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder pushed in before shoving the door shut. It protested and stuck a little, fighting got people’s blood up and hitting a door frame was a much safer way to bleed off frustration than hitting a person who might hit back. The boy dropped his bag, it landed with a muffled clatter, and he looked up to see all eyes on him.  
  
“So Jaune,” the speaker was a kid, maybe ten years old, grinning with the kind of cruelty only the truly innocent can muster. “How did it feel to get beat up by a girl on live television?”  
  
Jaune pulled his hoodie off slowly, dumping the snowflakes that had been caught in the folds on the floor. From the room there was a hiss of indrawn breath as his arms were revealed. Both were mottled with bruises, and now with his face free from the shadows of his hood a fading black eye could be seen.  
  
“Honestly?” He picked his bag back up with a wince. “That part wasn’t great.”

 

__

  
The flashes from innumerable cameras illuminated the stands, forming constantly shifting constellations. The crowds roared as he entered, he could feel the reverberations throughout his chest. Jaune didn’t take much solace from that though, they’d been roaring before he entered. He wasn’t the one they were there for. Across from him stood Pyrrha Nikos, hometown hero, two time Mistral Tournament winner, the Invincible Girl.  
  
Mickey’s words were running through his head as he walked to the ring, “Woman weaken legs.” It might not have been the most relevant piece of advice, but with her visible it was the only part racing through his mind.  
  
Pyrrha smiled as she saw him, it would have been easier to fight her if she wasn’t so relentlessly nice. Her mouth moved, but over the crowd’s noise and his own pulsing heartbeat he couldn’t hear her. He just smiled and mouthed something vaguely laudatory, hopefully she got the right message. The volume of the crowd spiked, it was time.  
  
She pulled her sword from its scabbard and advanced. He looked to his own, Crocea Mors was a heirloom but it was drab compared to the red and gold shifting spear she carried. The blade had gotten him this far though, all he needed was one more match, one more win. His strategy was the same as it had been throughout the tourney, block what he could, tank what he couldn’t and hope he landed enough hits to end the fight in his favor.  
  
As Pyrrha blurred forward he was beginning to think it might not work. She hit impossibly hard, he’d taken straight shots from a wall of a man who had been really proud of his ability to break concrete with his bare hands and they didn’t hurt half as much. Every slash or stab of his either missed incredibly wide, or was slapped away with barely a touch of her shield. When he tried to grapple she threw him over her hip halfway across the ring, and then shot him while he was down.  
  
He got up though, if there was one thing he was good at it was getting up. His parents wouldn’t train him? He got up. Signal had rejected him? He got up. Pyrrha Nikos smashed him through the floor? He got up.  
  
Admittedly that last one was more taxing, but getting up every morning before dawn was taxing too. He’d worked to get where he was, paid his dues, literally paid his gym fees by scraping the mildew from the walls, and if he was going to lose to Pyrrha Nikos like everyone else did, he was going to make her pay for it too.  
  
Introspection was something Mickey cultivated in his fighters, an awareness of the self. It helped in times like these, bruised and battered Jaune was still able to look at himself and he knew what he could do. ‘Know thyself’ was the old Mistrali dictum, if you didn’t know who you were at the start of a fight, you’d certainly have a better idea at the finish.  
  
She was better than him, he’d that known going in. He really knew it in his bones after her first hit, but until that freight train he had hoped that whatever story he was living through had one more happy chapter. She was in better shape than him, her aura still in the green as his flirted with the low end of yellow, but he could see her sweating. He couldn’t help but be encouraged by signs of mortality as she flashed forward for another dizzying sequence.  
  
Mickey’s gym had taught him a lot, and pulled away the wool from his eyes in ways he wouldn’t have imagined. When he’d been younger he’d loved movies, the triumph of good over evil, heroes dancing through battles, each step choreographed perfection. He knew better now. Fighting was nothing like a dance. It was brutal, grace was traded for efficiency, and if there was beauty it was of the same harsh sort as Crocea Mors, everything stripped away but the minimum, a triumph of function over form.  
  
Pyrrha danced. She could have stepped off the screen or even down from heaven, a bronzed goddess made real only to show humanity how far it was beneath her. Every block, every dodge, every counter was uncannily perfect. In the future people would look at the fighters of the day and shake their heads, knowing that they couldn’t measure up to what they once saw.  
  
Or maybe they wouldn’t, maybe he was just making excuses as she beat him to a pulp. It didn’t matter, Mickey’s third lesson was on how to lose. Losing wasn’t about sportsmanship, sure that was encouraged, but Mickey taught him how to act while losing. To never stop fighting, to never let your guard drop because you were exhausted and defeated, to try to exploit your opponent’s errors even if you didn’t have a chance in hell. To seize every moment, because even if Pyrrha Nikos was a literal goddess in the ring there was one power above all else.  
  
It wasn’t much, Jaune had been backpedalling the whole fight and as he tended to stay behind his shield he naturally moved in a circle. The crater in the floor wasn’t deep, he wasn’t sure if his body could take a hit that left a deep hole in steel, but it was there. Jaune reacted to it without thinking, Goldmill’s rings often had imperfections, it was one of the things you lived with when you didn’t have deep pockets. Pyrrha though? She’d been at the best facilities her whole life, the floor was always smooth and clean. She took a step and her balance was slightly off, Jaune pounced.  
  
Jaune knew he had a lot of aura, he usually tried not make too much of it. No one really knew what governed the amount a person had, so he couldn’t take any credit. There were thousands of studies that each pointed to a different explanation, creativity, life experiences, even prenatal dust exposure. Heredity was generally agreed to be a factor though, and Jaune was the scion of generations of heroes. All of his remaining power, depressingly little, he focused into his sword. Crocea Mors’ swing was both instant and inexorable, a lightning strike lashing into Pyrrha’s temporarily exposed ribcage.  
  
She took the hit hard and was knocked away, but she recovered before she landed. Her shield hurtled at him- by the time he blocked it she was there. Her spear lashed out, a feint that reacting to cost him dearly. She flipped him into the air, somehow her shield was in her hand and she used it to slam him into the ground.  
  
He only got up because he bounced, but he managed to lash out blindly. He didn’t even see her parry before her shield was hitting him again, this time in the face with a crunch and buzz from the speakers. He’d lost.  
  
His knees nearly buckled, but he managed to lock them as the world alternated between too bright and too dark. Pyrrha looked concerned in the brief moments his vision was normal and then Mickey was there under his shoulder.  
  
They were saying something, both of them, but he couldn’t really hear them over the crowd and the ringing of his head. Hopefully his aura would recover soon and deal with his probable concussion. He managed to remain standing for the presentation of the medals, his silver gleamed as bright as any gold, then they were leaving, headed for the tunnel to the locker rooms.  
  
Out from under the stadium lights the world regained some clarity, he could hear again and his brain felt less like exploding. He tuned out Mickey’s words, he knew the old man would understand, and kept his attention on walking in a straight line. Being punch drunk was bad, but being seen to be punch drunk was even worse.  
  
Mickey stopping caught him by surprise, he took an extra step before recovering. It was for Pyrrha, the redhead looking uncharacteristically nervous. He’d met her before the match of course, she had been the very image of the cereal cover model.  
  
“You fought pretty well out there,” that was kind of her to say so, her side of the bracket had been far harder than his and he’d gotten a favorable draw. “Maybe I’ll see you next year for a rematch?”  
  
“Thanks, and if you’re ever in Vale..” he didn’t really know what to say, he wasn’t great with girls even with all his brain cells functioning.  
  
“Yeah, of course,” she threw a quick glance at her coach, a balding man with cross cropped hair who looked carved of stone, especially next to Mickey whose best years were far behind him. “If I ever want to mix up my training, I’ll give you a call.”  
  
Jaune nodded numbly until Mickey gave him a slight shove. “Oh right,” he took her scroll and punched his number in, she texted it and he could just barely hear his go off from his locker room. She gave a gleaming smile, he barely needed to imagine the flash of her teeth, and was gone.

 

__

  
The boy wasn’t satisfied with four words, and proceeded to tell Jaune that. “That’s all you have to say about getting pounded through the floor?”  
  
Jaune gave the question all the consideration it deserved then shook his head. Mickey’s entrance started the gym back into motion, no one wanted him to see them slacking. Jaune shouldered his bag and started to the lockers, he had a year to get ready. Losing hadn’t been fun, but he was good at getting back up.


End file.
